During Obama's State of the Union speech a few days ago, he made reference to the teamwork that taking down Osama bin Laden required -- and how on that fateful evening he sat next to Hillary Clinton -- "a woman who ran against me for President."
When he said that, the camera panned to Hillary's face. I was struck by how pained Hillary's smile was. And it hit me how much she must hate Obama.
Put yourself in her shoes. In 2008, it was fairly obvious that a Democrat was going to win the White House. The public was sick of the two wars Bush started. The Iraq War was widely viewed as a mistake. The mortgage crisis was heating up, and the stock market was down.
Hillary had Bill on her side (she hadn't stuck with him all those years for nothing). And she had experience: she understood the kind of games she would have to play to win the Presidency. After all, she had learned at the feet of the Master. (Though not on her knees -- that was Monica's job.)
Hillary also had big money on her side, a raft of endorsements, and the rabid support of the feminists. She was all set to make history by becoming the first female President.
Then along came that brash young pretender, who traded on his race the same way she traded on her gender. (There's nothing more annoying than to see someone use your own tricks against you.)
Well, we all know what happened next.
Now Obama is the one who gets to jet around on Air Force One. He's the one who is greeted with shrieking adulation by adoring crowds. He's the one who gets to meet all those heads of state on an equal basis. He gets to live at 1600 Pennsylvania, which used to be her house. (How much of a dagger in her heart is that?)
And all this despite the fact that it's become increasingly apparent that he has little idea of how to run a country.
So now Hillary has to watch him give the State of the Union speeches, while she sits in the audience and tries to look appreciative.
While swallowing her bile.
There are a lot of people who hate Barack Obama. But almost certainly none more than Hillary.
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9 comments:
I think Hilary looks exhausted as well as pained. She has been in the front line of dealing with the mayhem of the last decade of US foreign policy, and I'll bet she's as disappointed as any Democrat about how empty the domestic record is, in addition the personal disappointment she must feel.
G
G --
That sounds suspiciously like real sympathy. Mine was completely false.
Hillary can be summed up by of the following phrases:
-Cattle futures trading
-White House china
-Vast right-wing conspiracy
-Two for the price of one
I don't think she's a sociopath like Bill, but she's about as phony as you can get without being one.
John, yes, they are all phony. One can read my comment as sympathy or schadenfreude, depending on one's politics.
G
G --
Yes, they are all phony, but some more so than others, and Hillary leads the pack. Have you ever listened to her bing interviewed? She basically won't give a straight answer on anything.
Wait a minute... wasn't "White House china" Nancy Reagan's thing?
Nancy Reagan never tried to take the fancy china from the White House when she left it the way Hillary did.
If Obama wins in 2012, it means she'll have to wait another 4 yrs, and by then, nation might want a Republican president after having had enough of Obama the Democrat, and that means Hillary misses out again. If a Republican wins in 2012, it means she'll have to wait 4 more yrs. If the Republican is re-elected in 2016, Hillary will wait til 2020, and she may be way too old.
Andrea --
Yes, HIllary was born in October 1947, so by the 2016 election she'll be 69 and by 2020, 73. Reagan turned 70 right after he took office in 1981, and there was a lot of talk about his age at the time. He seemed fine his first term, even after getting shot, but was in decline during his second. The public seems less resistant to old age now -- Ron Paul is now 76, and there is little talk of his age, though that may be partly because his chances of getting elected are nil. But yeah, you're right, it's looking like it's too late for Hillary.
There's a nice little saying from Leonard Cohen, '...quicker than it takes to hate a rival's charm'.
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